This book tells the story of both the ancient humans who made handaxes and the thoughts and ideas of scholars who have spent their lives trying to understand them. Beginning with the earliest known finds, this volume provides a linear and thematic account of the history of the Old Stone Age, or Palaeolithic period, covering major discoveries, interpretations and debates worldwide; a story that takes us from the embers of the Great Fire of London to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers a comprehensive and unique history of archaeological theory and interpretation, seeking to explain how we know what we know about the deep past, and how ideas about it have changed over time, reflecting both scientific and societal change. At its heart lies the quest for an answer to a most curious and sometimes beautiful tool ever made – the handaxe. While focused on the Earlier Palaeolithic period, the book provides a readable account of how ideas about the prehistoric past generally were formed and altered, showing how the wider discipline came to be dominated by a succession of different theoretical ‘paradigms’, each seeking different answers from the same data set. Serving a dual purpose as a historical narrative and as a reference source, this book will be of interest to all students and researchers interested in deep human prehistory and evolution, archaeological theory and the history of archaeology.

This book addresses the global history of technology, warfare and state formation from the Stone Age to the Information Age. Using a combination of top-down and bottom-up methodologies, it examines both interstate and intrastate conflicts with a focus on Eurasian technology and warfare. It shows how human agency and structural factors have intertwined, creating a complex web of technology and warfare. It also explores the interplay between technological and non-technological factors to chart the evolution of warfare from its origins to the present day, arguing that the interactions between civilian and military sectors have shaped the use of technology in warfare. Given its scope and depth, it is a valuable resource for researchers in fields such as world history, history of science and technology, history of warfare and imperialism and international relations.

Cognitive Archaeology is a relatively young though fast growing discipline. The intellectual heart of cognitive archaeology is archaeology, the discipline that investigates the only direct evidence of the actions and decisions of prehistoric people. Its theories and methods are an eclectic mix of psychological, neuroscientific, paleoneurological, philosophical, anthropological, ethnographic, comparative, aesthetic, and experimental theories, methods, and models, united only by their focus on cognition. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology is a landmark publication, showcasing the theories, methods, and accomplishments of archaeologists who investigate the human mind, including its evolutionary development, its ideation (thoughts and beliefs), and its very nature-through material forms. The volume encompasses the wide spectrum of the discipline, showcasing contributions from more than 50 established and emerging scholars from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Prominent among these are contributions that discuss the epistemological frameworks of both the evolutionary and ideational approaches and the leading theories that ground interpretations. Significantly, the majority of chapters deliver substantive contributions that analyze specific examples of material culture, from the oldest known stone tools to ceramic and rock art traditions of the recent millennium. These examples include the gamut of methods and techniques, including typology, replication studies, cha?nes operatoires, neuroarchaeology, ethnographic comparison, and the direct historical approach. In addition, the book begins with retrospective essays by several of the pioneers of cognitive archaeology, presenting a broad range of state-of-the-art investigations into cognitive abilities, tackling thorny issues like the cognitive status of Neandertals, and concluding with speculative essays about the future of an archaeology of mind, and of the mind itself.

For thousands of years, Portugal has been the point of arrival and departure for peoples, cultures, languages, ideas, fashions, behaviours, beliefs, institutions and produce. While its miscegenation and global multimodal activity enriched the world in many ways, it also provoked violence, war, suffering and resistance. The Global History of Portugal contains 93 chapters grouped into five parts: Pre-history, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern period and Modern World. Each chapter begins with an event, interpreted in the light of global history. Each part opens with an introduction, offering a perspective of the period in question. The three Editors, five Scientific Coordinators (João Luís Cardoso, Carlos Fabião, Bernardo Vasconcelos e Sousa, Catia Antunes and António Costa Pinto) and ninety Contributors offer a critical and analytical synthesis of the history that originated in Portuguese territory or passed through it, stimulating the process of encounter and dis-encounter in todays global world. The history presented gives special attention to the world that moulded Portugal and the Portuguese, and to the ways Portugal configured the world. It seeks to identify and understand the transversal entanglements of historic impact and the impulses these gave to the construction of Portugal and the world. Contemporary reflection and academic scholarship on the global history of leading nations has stimulated a rethinking of the past and a more comprehensive recognition of legacy. Historians can no longer overlook the wider world with which their country of investigation has interacted. Portugal's role in the dynamic circulation of peoples and ideas makes it global history not only unique by way of what took place but also in terms of a potential academic template for better understanding of how the past shapes the present, and more particularly the importance of acknowledging a country's past historic mis-steps and how these are dealt with by contemporary populations.

Presenting selected histories in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, this work discusses: political and economic issues; marriage practices, motherhood and enslavement; and religious beliefs and spiritual development. Famous women, including Hatshepsut, Hortensia, Aisha, Hildegard of Bingen and Sei Shonangan, are discussed as well as lesser known and anonymous women. Both primary and secondary source readings are included.

This volume describes the events of the Bible as taking place in Britain, with the Jews identified as the Silures and Moses as an arms dealer fomenting conflict and touting serpent rods and golden apples. Sophisticated weapons are manufactured in underground bases and great wars take place causing a refugee crisis. Temples are burned and the war culminates in a catastrophe, but is it an act of gods or men?

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An unprecedented undertaking by academics reflecting an extraordinary vision of world history, this landmark multivolume encyclopedia focuses on specific themes of human development across cultures era by era, providing the most in-depth, expansive presentation available of the development of humanity from a global perspective. Well-known and widely respected historians worked together to create and guide the project in order to offer the most up-to-date visions available. A monumental undertaking. A stunning academic achievement. ABC-CLIO's World History Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive work to take a large-scale thematic look at the human species worldwide. Comprised of 21 volumes covering 9 eras, an introductory volume, and an index, it charts the extraordinary journey of humankind, revealing crucial connections among civilizations in different regions through the ages. Within each era, the encyclopedia highlights pivotal interactions and exchanges among cultures within eight broad thematic categories: population and environment, society and culture, migration and travel, politics and statecraft, economics and trade, conflict and cooperation, thought and religion, science and technology. Aligned to national history standards and packed with images, primary resources, current citations, and extensive teaching and learning support, the World History Encyclopedia gives students, educators, researchers, and interested general readers a means of navigating the broad sweep of history unlike any ever published.